Article by
Barbados Today

Published on
May 24, 2017

A 42-year-old man, who has no fixed place of abode, will spend his first 28 days on remand at HMP Dodds after spending three weeks at the Psychiatric Hospital.

When Laurence Alan Manning Knowles made his second appearance before Magistrate Douglas Frederick in the No. 1 District ‘A’ Criminal Court today, he pleaded guilty to two of six fraud related offences that occurred sometime between April 10 and 16 this year.

The unemployed man also confessed to stealing a handbag, a pair of reading glasses, two purses, $65 in cash, a wallet, a cheque book, a Barbados identification card, an NIS card, a driver’s licence, a BARP card and a Massy card belonging to Johanna Gamblin on April 10.

He also admitted that on April 14, with intent to defraud, he forged a certain bill of exchange purporting to be a First Caribbean International Bank Limited cheque, payable to Tapas Restaurant, for $100 and another for $80 on April 16.

However, he did not plead to obtaining and uttering to Food Link Limited, a forged bill of exchange purporting to be a First Caribbean International Bank Limited cheque payable to Tapas Restaurant for $100 and another for $80, with intent to defraud.

Those offences are indictable.

Today, his attorney Sian Lange informed the magistrate that the offences committed by her client were as a result of his drug addiction. She said Knowles had been evicted from his mother’s house and the situation led him to “become a little desperate”.

And while she did not recommend a non-custodial sentence for Knowles, she urged the magistrate to consider her client’s situation and impose a sentence that would include rehabilitation.

After considering the attorney’s submissions, Frederick remanded Knowles to the penal institution until June 20.